A computer session is an interactive information interchange between two or more computing devices or between a computer and user. Each particular session may have a time-out property to specify a time-out period assigned to the particular session, for example, the time-out period may be 5 minutes. Therefore, if a user does not refresh or request a page within the time-out period, the session ends.
Users who shop or bank online often find that while they view other web pages or are distracted from their computer, their session is timed out. A timed out session requires a user to not only re-authenticate but the user may have lost any information that had been previously entered.